It's like something snaps back into place when he catches her, but her mind as muddled as it is takes a moment to catch up her instincts as she tries to wrest out of his hold and get to Cato before Cato gets to Peeta, except that in said snap Cato is gone and suddenly she hears Frankie speaking. To her, she realizes and when he stops, her remnant twisting also stops, the stillness amplified by the contrast of how even a toss of moonlight seems to make her want to jump out of this decaying skin. To a degree she has always seemed a little older, older at least than sixteen but she attributes this to the things she has seen and been through and none of that prepared her very much for a death-like existence. So right now she has the distant feeling of being younger again, smaller, an animal ready to bolt if she could and she doesn't want to hurt anyone.
And it isn't the prospect of all that pain that puts her off but the blood again, and she almost thinks she pales beneath the already sickly pallor, battered looking though it's only the result of not eating and nothing else. Trembling is weak so she ignores it when it happens, as if she could be cold but she has already gotten used to that, trying to keep down the beginnings of bile in her throat and reminding herself why she has to trust this man, why she has to do this. Some would say it isn't a big deal; that he offered, that he won't die, and that if what he says is true she'll be fixed so there is nothing to lose, but Katniss has spent long years of a comparatively short life eliminating her fears, and one of those that she hasn't been able to escape carries the smell of blood--thick as death--on his breath, on his person, in everything he does. She can't stand the idea of being anything like a man who sends Peacekeepers into the District 12 area, who knows what will happen to people like her and people like Gale and in a ricochet effect, someone like Peeta.
But that brings her harder to the present. Peeta.
That's why. He's why. They only have each other. She goes over all of this in her mind and it seems to take a very long time but in truth lasts maybe a minute, which is long when no one says anything perhaps.
...worse...might not be able to fix it...
She hones in on those specifics and remembers the boy at the mouth of the cave, the boy with the bread, the boy she will never stop owing as hard and as much as she tries. To run away from a chance to at least right things as who and what they are is a disservice to him and god knows she's already racked up enough of those. Dimly she thinks of his bad leg, of bleeding hands, and that brings her back to blood. Again, she shivers, dark hair stressing down in tangles as she swallows sharpness and raises her eyes to find Frankie's. Is he tired? Little thoughts tug at the corners of her mind, distracting her from saying anything immediately. How many others were there? Not knowing the mechanics of this much, she tenses under his hold, her breaths shallow though she tries to temper them to something quieter.
"I don't..." a pause. "I don't want to..." I can't, I don't understand how this works...how..., "Do I have to...bite?" she forces the word out, heavy and pointed and a problem she can't seem to be clearer about, but she has a feeling he'll understand, not based on faith in empathy but because he seems familiar with the situation and if there is something she can recognize and appreciate, it's that.
Still...
...blood.
But Peeta...
She stops her thoughts there, tries to revolve them around that boy like he's a sun to be circled; tunnel vision of a sort to get herself to do what her body both wants and rejects, contradiction incarnate.
and set to try to take away the shadows from your eyes
And it isn't the prospect of all that pain that puts her off but the blood again, and she almost thinks she pales beneath the already sickly pallor, battered looking though it's only the result of not eating and nothing else. Trembling is weak so she ignores it when it happens, as if she could be cold but she has already gotten used to that, trying to keep down the beginnings of bile in her throat and reminding herself why she has to trust this man, why she has to do this. Some would say it isn't a big deal; that he offered, that he won't die, and that if what he says is true she'll be fixed so there is nothing to lose, but Katniss has spent long years of a comparatively short life eliminating her fears, and one of those that she hasn't been able to escape carries the smell of blood--thick as death--on his breath, on his person, in everything he does. She can't stand the idea of being anything like a man who sends Peacekeepers into the District 12 area, who knows what will happen to people like her and people like Gale and in a ricochet effect, someone like Peeta.
But that brings her harder to the present. Peeta.
That's why. He's why. They only have each other. She goes over all of this in her mind and it seems to take a very long time but in truth lasts maybe a minute, which is long when no one says anything perhaps.
...worse...might not be able to fix it...
She hones in on those specifics and remembers the boy at the mouth of the cave, the boy with the bread, the boy she will never stop owing as hard and as much as she tries. To run away from a chance to at least right things as who and what they are is a disservice to him and god knows she's already racked up enough of those. Dimly she thinks of his bad leg, of bleeding hands, and that brings her back to blood. Again, she shivers, dark hair stressing down in tangles as she swallows sharpness and raises her eyes to find Frankie's. Is he tired? Little thoughts tug at the corners of her mind, distracting her from saying anything immediately. How many others were there? Not knowing the mechanics of this much, she tenses under his hold, her breaths shallow though she tries to temper them to something quieter.
"I don't..." a pause. "I don't want to..." I can't, I don't understand how this works...how..., "Do I have to...bite?" she forces the word out, heavy and pointed and a problem she can't seem to be clearer about, but she has a feeling he'll understand, not based on faith in empathy but because he seems familiar with the situation and if there is something she can recognize and appreciate, it's that.
Still...
...blood.
But Peeta...
She stops her thoughts there, tries to revolve them around that boy like he's a sun to be circled; tunnel vision of a sort to get herself to do what her body both wants and rejects, contradiction incarnate.